This policy paper contributes to the debate on the implementation of the new resilience paradigm central to the EU‘s Global Strategy. It argues that the EU should clearly distinguish between regime stability as the capacity to persist or ‘bounce back’, and resilience as societal capacities to undergo processes of adaptation and transformation. Moreover, the EU should focus on legitimate institutions, appropriate institutional design, and social trust when strengthening resilience in its neighbourhood. In order to help build resilience the EU needs to know its neighbours, find the right partners in its neighbourhood, and provide the policy space for new resilience partnerships to develop.